[vortex] Re: [Etherboot-developers] 3C905CX-TXM flashing with cromutil hangs

Sat Mar 15 06:58:00 2003

[CCed vortex@scyld.com, because of failure of vortex-diag]

Thanks, Ken, for responding.

On Saturday 15 March 2003 00:36, Ken Yap wrote:
> >I just tried to flash etherboot onto this NIC, but failed. cromutil says,
> >it erases the flash successfully, but it doesn't. Factory boot image
> > can still be read, and booted from. Flash chip is an AMD
> > AM29F002BT-70JC.
> >
> >Searching the web reveals some similar problems, but no solutions yet.
> >Does anybody succeed in this. The former model 3C905C-TX-M (which isn't
> >manufactured anymore) doesn't have those problems.
>
> Doesn't Donald Becker's site have some utilities for dealing with

I've now also tried vortex-diag. Since it hangs on save of flash, I 
haven't tried flashing with it:

vortex-diag.c:v2.09 9/18/2002 Donald Becker (becker@scyld.com)
 http://www.scyld.com/diag/index.html
Index #1: Found a 3c905C Tornado 100baseTx adapter at 0xd800.
Hmmm, no response to the ID command, trying again..
ACKKK, this may not be a programmable Flash part!
Unknown BIOS ROM ID 55 AA.
Saving the boot flash ROM into file '../../3c905cxtxm.bootrom'...
<fullstop>

vortex-diag -ee says:
vortex-diag.c:v2.09 9/18/2002 Donald Becker (becker@scyld.com)
 http://www.scyld.com/diag/index.html
Index #1: Found a 3c905C Tornado 100baseTx adapter at 0xd800.
EEPROM format 64x16, configuration table at offset 0:
    00: 000a 0dd4 77d7 9200 036c 0048 5a53 6d50
  0x08: 2940 0800 000a 0dd4 77d7 0010 0000 00aa
  0x10: 72a2 0000 0000 0180 0000 0000 0429 10b7
  0x18: 1000 000a 0002 6300 ffb7 b7b7 0000 0000
  0x20: 009d 1234 5600 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
  0x28: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
  0x30: ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
      ...

 The word-wide EEPROM checksum is 0xb700.
Saved EEPROM settings of a 3Com Vortex/Boomerang:
 3Com Node Address 00:0A:0D:D4:77:D7 (used as a unique ID only).
 OEM Station address 00:0A:0D:D4:77:D7 (used as the ethernet address).
  Device ID 9200,  Manufacturer ID 6d50.
  Manufacture date (MM/DD/YYYY) 11/12/2001, division H, product SZ.
  A BIOS ROM of size 0Kx8 is expected.
 Options: negotiated duplex, link beat required.
  Vortex format checksum is incorrect (0b vs. 10b7).
  Cyclone format checksum is incorrect (0x9b vs. 0x9d).
  Hurricane format checksum is incorrect (0xb2 vs. 0x9d).

The BIOS ROM size looks bogus. Maybe 128KB(?) isn't expected here.

I also peeked into the public accessible (after registration) documentation
from 3com, but this seems not to cover this specific model at all :-(.

> flashing? Also if the chips are plug in you could flash them somewhere
> else. But they may be soldered down or this may not be practical for a

No way, it's soldered.

> large number of NICs. Sounds like 3Com don't want people installing
> their own images. Patronise another vendor. Tulip and Via-Rhine chips

I don't think, 3com locks us out on purpose. They even packaged some DOS/Win 
bootware tools here: http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/mba.htm. 
Needless to say, mbflash.exe from this package fails to detect this flash, 
too :-(.

> are just as good performance wise.

If I fail to get this setup working, I will consider it. Given the variety
of different tulip designs, I'm not very keen on it.

> >Alternatively, how far is PXE support on linux? What disadvantages I
> >need to deal with (kernel boot parameter, initrd)?
>
> I believe it works well, I haven't tried it, check H. Peter Anvin's
> site.

I try to stay on my etherboot setup, which is working really nice for all 
my machines. Thanks for the effort of you all. And the necessary imggen 
utility for PXE is binary only :-(. Hopefully I can get it to work somehow.

Thanks again,
Pete